SFXB Forum

Christmas Present

Christmas Present

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 3:24 pm

by AndyThomas

Oh, that's quite do-able with a bit of javascript, or Flash, of course. I've never done it directly myself, but I sort of watched over the shoulder of someone who did and basically you just need an image that displays for so long, associated with a link, then another gets displayed for another link and so on. You could do that to advertise a site, I suppose, but it wouldn't be quite as portable as a single image and would need more code. I imagine a Flash version would be pretty self contained, mind you, thinking about it...

Christmas Present

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 9:19 pm

by AndyThomas

It does indeed, although I can't figure out a way to download it - presumably you'd need to have a link to the .swf file in order to enable people to re-use it? It's probably one of the more sensible, restrained uses of Flash I can think of - that does actually add functionality rather that just being there for the sake of it. Having thought about it, the javascript option would require a fair amount of adaption of a page's text or even a seperate script file. The advantage of the javascript approach is that you're not dependent on software to change the images - you'd just stick a new image or link in and the routine would carry on.There is one other practical issue to consider of course. Say I changed the forum's URL - the Flash file would have to be re-done, and you couldn't do it without having access to Flash. That's purely a deep-linking issue though. I've seen a forum that has a rotating banner for several sites, which is fine because their main URLs will remain stable. One of the key problems of the web, of course - links aren't smart. They can't fix themselves if they become broken. You'd need the mother of all look-up tables to get round that one, I imagine - e.g. rather than linking to a .htm page you link to a number associated with it in a central registry. No matter where the .htm page goes, provided the registry's current, the number will always get you to the page you originally linked to. Nice theory, eh?!

Christmas Present

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 9:34 pm

by Shane

>>There is one other practical issue to consider of course. Say I changed the forum's URL - the Flash file would have to be re-done, and you couldn't do it without having access to Flash. That's purely a deep-linking issue though.<<That's just nitpicking. The file can be emailed easily enough and URL changes can be made in seconds. Yes you need flash to edit it yourself, or someone who has flash can do it for you.Shane.

Christmas Present

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 9:48 pm

by AndyThomas

Oh, I'm sure it'd be easy enough to do and if all concerned used the version of the swf file stored on your site you'd definitely be laughing. In fact, that's a definite plus over conventional banner links - even if someone used your traditional banner graphic, it'd still be down to them to get the link right. But using Flash you've got both the graphic and the link tied in together so they can't help but get it right!One possible downside does occur to me though - robots. Namely, the variety that scan sites for links and content. I'm not sure that a Flash-embedded link would get picked up by them, so it might result in a lower search engine placement for the site being linked to. Not that I'm 100% sure a rolling javascript link would get picked up either, mind you... It's swings and roundabouts. How big is that Flash file as it stands, Shane?

Christmas Present

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002 1:01 am

by Shane

That, actually is a good point. The file itself is next to nothing (28kb) but you are right, search engine wise you would be buggered. But as your Site is fairly high up on Star Fleet searches, I dont think it would hurt you.Of course it wouldn't be as usefull for newer sites.Isn't there a trick where you type a word connected to your site as many times as you can in a html page and it then appears higher up the list of searches? Shane.

Christmas Present

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002 3:19 pm

by AndyThomas

Yes, that trick used to work - right up until the point search engines got sophisticated enough to recognise it! Getting rated on search engines (without paying) is an art form all to itself in many ways, because none of them will say quite how their indexing systems work. So your best bet is always to try and get other sites to link to you in combination with whatever search engines might pick you up - that way there are two main avenues people can find you through...

Christmas Present

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 7:10 am

by Bradster

This is why Google is favored among the savvy web geeks like myself (aside from it's simplicity and lack of intrusive ads).Google explains in simple english how its search engine works. There's no paying to get higher ranks or fancy keyword trickery to get listed higher. Yes, keywords are still relevant, but they only account for a part of the equation. From PageRank Explained:Quote PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query. So, basically, as more people link to and visit your site, your rank climbs higher. This is what you were referring to, right Andy? How Google analyzes the rest of the data, of course, is a trade secret.It's nice to see that SFXB is the fourth page listed when you query for "star fleet" and the third when searching for "x-bomber".

Christmas Present

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 12:48 pm

by AndyThomas

Yes, that's certainly a factor that's helped SFXB I think - in the "early days" it suffered, inevitably, from the amount of star "everything else" sites that were around. So in response to that I mentioned the site on newsgroups and set about getting other sites to link to SFXB (or adamantium as it then was). I doubt that helped much in the short term, but now that engines like Google factor linkage into their calculations it clearly does otherwise SFXB wouldn't be so high up on the international search. Another thing which may have helped is the switch to using different directories on the site - all the homepage links in them may also count as linkage back to the homepage, although I'm not 100% sure about that because they are in the same domain of course. Google does seem to be play it pretty straight up, as you say Brad, which is nice if you know your stuff but can't afford to pay for a better ranking. Google does support keyword placements, incidentally - but it's relatively inobtrusive...